In Reach of the Silos

Jonathan Simkins lives in Denver’s RiNo district. He is the author with artist Justin Ankenbauer of the ekphrastic chapbook, Translucent Winds (Helikon Gallery & Studios, 2016). The title poem of his second chapbook, This Is The Crucible(LuNaMoPoLiS, 2017), was nominated for Best New Poets 2016. His poems have appeared in various publications, including Epigraph Magazine, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans, Requited Journal, and Wilderness House Literary Review, among others.

Hide in the dark alone, objector;
Ask a grenade what you are living for,
Or drink this knowledge from the mud

—Weldon Kees

In Reach of the Silos

Weigh her down with the sidereal stars
And the sword in its nuclear scabbard.

Lock her up, gag her liar’s mouth,
And shoot her for treason.

The revolution is at hand.

Let every native everywhere confess
The One North American Throne.

Let the name of America’s White Lion be plastered
On shit products from hemisphere to hemisphere.

Let none enter the gates of his kingdom
Who utter the five-lettered name of God.

Let the foreign skins perish beneath the wall
In their plebeian hunger and savagery.

Give the strongman the keys to our White House,
The codes to our unparalleled greatness.